


Four Times Reno Didn't Believe Rude

by indoorsy



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 05:37:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indoorsy/pseuds/indoorsy
Summary: A collection of short works sharing a theme of Reno's disbelief in Rude across various situations.





	1. Chapter 1

**Case of Chocobo**

Reno turned to his partner with an incredulous look which soon shifted to amusement.

“It’s a damn chocobo, Rude!” Reno's adrenaline converted into hysterical cackling.

“I know,” Rude spoke stoically, “that’s what I told you.”

The pair were currently tasked with guarding Rufus at an indistinct safe house on sprawling country land after a recent attempt on his life perpetrated by terrorists. The atmosphere was tense as they fulfilled their shifts – trading off with Tseng and Elena every 12 hours, Rude and Reno being tasked with the night watch – and it felt almost _nostalgic_. People didn’t threaten the President as often as they used to, before Midgar was a pile of rubble and Shinra stocks were in the toilet. Most of the Planet’s citizens seemed to focus on rebuilding their livelihoods rather than dredging up conflict with old adversaries – but apparently some folks got antsy during peacetime and decided taking out Rufus would quell their ills.

Reno was of course concerned for his boss, but one of his first fleeting thoughts after the assassination attempt was, _At least I finally get to do shit from my job description again._

Rude was proficient at guarding – the quiet, calm, concentrated stillness was natural to him. That wasn't the case for Reno; though he attempted at intervals to mimic Rude’s stoic discipline, his restlessness would bubble to the surface with fidgets, leg bouncing, eyes flitting across the room indeterminately, and non sequiturs floating from his mouth before his brain could fully register what he was saying.

Reno felt almost _relieved_ when they heard a menacing scratching coming from outside the house. Out of the corner of Reno's eye, he saw a shadowy figure sprint past an adjacent window, and by the time he was able to yell, “Rude, outside!” the two had already split up and were heading towards opposite doors.

_This_ was what being a Turk was about to Reno. The thrill, the chase, the uncertainty – Reno quickly surveyed the front of the house, his cat-like eyes adeptly attuned to seeking motion in the darkness. His pursuit was abruptly halted when he received a call from Rude.

“Target subdued. Behind the house.” A pause. “It’s a chocobo.”

Reno had hung up the phone before whispering, “What the hell?”

But there he was now, face-to-face with the avian scoundrel, unable to contain his giggles as they erupted from his throat.

“I thought you were joking!” More laughter, punctuated by a snort.

Rude crossed his arms, taking mild offense to the redhead’s flippancy.

Reno straightened up, reading Rude’s gestures and translating them to words, “I know, I know, you don’t joke on the job.” He caught another glance at the chocobo and snickered involuntarily. “But this is just funny. I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed.”

Reno crouched down for a closer look, noting Rude's impeccable rope tying skills which restrained the fowl – just another tedious, precision-based art Rude excelled at.

“These are some beautiful knots,” Reno drawled slyly. “Maybe you could give me a demonstration later…”

“Heh.” Rude gave a non-committal grunt.

“Oh, but wait,” Reno said with a click of his tongue, “this guy’s a liability now. He’s got intel on where the President’s staked out. Think we should…” Reno pantomimed a gun with his fingers as the chocobo gave a defiant wark.

“…”

“I’m just kidding, yo!” Reno scoffed as he fluffed the feathers on top of the chocobo’s head. “I guess we should go let the President know he ain’t in any danger. But… we should also let ‘im know…” Reno's demeanor cracked as new chortles spilled from his mouth, “he should probably stock up on some Gysahl Greens!”

Reno was cackling again, and even Rude began to grin – whether at the absurdity of the situation or because of Reno's infectious laughter, he wasn’t quite sure.


	2. Chapter 2

**Case of Sunscreen**

Reno sighed contentedly as the warm rays of the sun caressed his bare flesh. His nostrils flared with the scent of salt in the air, and the steady lapping of waves at the coastline created an ambience so divine, he almost had to question if it was real.

“Geez, Partner,” he drawled lazily as he turned over on his beach chair and laid facing Rude, “why don’t we take vacations more often?”

“Because we can’t afford it,” Rude deadpanned.

“Yeah, yeah. I was bein' rhetorical.” Reno took a sip of his electric blue mixed drink, savoring the tropical flavors in a sharp contrast to his usual method of alcohol consumption (which was basically down it as fast as possible).

“Reno.” Rude's voice was stern as he looked at the expectant redhead. “You should put on some sunscreen.”

Reno rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the concern, but I’m not as fragile as you think I am.” He gulped down the rest of his drink before moving on to another, the next being hot pink and accented with a cherry.

Rude rolled his eyes right back, though less visibly through his dark lenses. “It’s not about being fragile. It’s science – UV rays, you ginger bastard.”

Reno shrugged.

Rude pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He knew that Reno grew up underneath the plate, and consequently didn’t have much reverence for the sun. In fact, he seemed almost defiant of it, like in this moment – almost as a subtle “fuck you” to the glowing orb in the sky that he managed to survive without for much of his life.

Rude was at the other end of the spectrum. The sun was a constant growing up – something he never realized he took for granted until his first time beneath the plate. Adjusting to that particular dimness and the oversaturation of artificial light was disconcerting and a source of many headaches for Rude. In this moment, however, he basked appreciatively in the familiar sun of his homeland.

“Hey, Rude,” Reno spoke softly, as if on cue with Rude's musings, “does being here make you feel nostalgic?”

Rude cast his gaze towards the sea. “Sort of. It’d be a lot more pleasant if I still had family to come back to.”

“Amen to that,” Reno responded empathetically as he started to nurse his next drink – bright yellow, like the sun.

The next morning, Reno's skin was a shade of glowing red complementary to his hair. Almost as soon as Reno woke up, Rude appeared beside him with a glass of ice water and a handful of painkillers. Reno gave him a scowl which read of “you were right” as well as “don’t pity me” but he readily accepted the offering anyway.

“Not gonna go down on my list of best decisions.” Reno winced as he adjusted himself on the bed. He could feel angry heat radiating from his skin.

“Here.” Rude appeared beside him gently, beckoning his partner to sit up straight. Reno heard a cap pop open and raised his eyebrows inquisitively. “Aloe vera lotion.” Rude carefully massaged the lotion onto Reno's warm skin, exploring his familiar curves and crevices with a touch so light and gentle that it became unfathomable in the moment that those same hands were also used to kill.

“Mmmmm.” Reno broke the trance with an exaggerated moan as he dropped his head forward. “I woulda worn the damn sunscreen if you woulda put it on me like this!”

“…You could have asked.”

Reno laughed. “I didn’t know the offer was on the table!” He paused as his expression sobered. “…Thank you, Rude.”

The cap of the lotion closed with a click.

“No problem, Partner.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Case of Cookery**

Acrid smoke hung heavily in the cramped kitchen, its lingering presence undeterred by the wide open windows and sputtering fans strewn about. An unrecognizable mass of burnt remains laid within a ruined baking dish, almost like a casket at a viewing.

“Jesus,” Rude muttered. “Tell me what happened.”

Reno stood quietly – a rare occurrence – with the expression of a guilty puppy. He drew in a breath as he contemplated his words.

“Well, I wanted to do something special for you, it bein' your birthday and all,” Reno adjusted himself anxiously, “so I wanted to cook you somethin' nice, y'know, since, y’know, you usually do most, uh, all of the cooking, so I thought…” Reno cleared his throat and attempted to meet Rude's gaze through his sunglasses, but he retreated his eyes almost instantly. “Well, I got a little short on time and thought, hey, I can just cook it on double the temperature for half the time!”

Rude sighed. “Reno, I recall explicitly telling you that’s not how it works. Many times.”

“Well uh,” Reno stammered, “I guess I just needed to conduct my own hands-on investigation to make sure… I thought I was being clever, innovative even.” Reno nervously clasped his hands behind his back. Watching a venerated Turk interrogator squirm was a little surreal and almost unnerving.

Rude's expression had a degree of softness to it. He knew Reno's previous diet consisted of little else beyond coffee, cigarettes, and booze (and maybe some Cup Noodles if the hunger pangs became too gnawing). His face had been more gaunt and his body jutted with sharp angles. It wasn’t until the two began spending the bulk of their free time together that Reno started to eat nutritious meals regularly. Rude had been both insistent and persistent by crafting meal plans that slowly weaned Reno from his salt cravings and catered to his preference for spiciness. Getting Reno to enjoy a dish native to Rude’s homeland of Costa del Sol had filled him with a sense of pride comparable to completing a perilous Turk mission.

Rude was honestly impressed that Reno had managed to turn on the oven.

“It was a good effort,” Rude said dryly.

“Don’t patronize me.” Reno frowned momentarily but quickly brightened up. “Hey, no worries though, I’ll order in some pizza! Even with those gross mushrooms you like!” Reno leaned in to Rude and slid a hand tantalizingly down his chest as he began to dial his phone with the other. “And I can make up for this mess in… other ways… tonight.”

Rude smirked – until he realized Reno was using his allure to absolve himself from cleaning up the kitchen. Rude decided he didn’t mind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Case of Guilt**

The calendar on Rude's desk stared at him somewhat ominously as he wrapped up mundane paperwork with his tidy penmanship and a few swoops denoting his signature. The day had been mostly uneventful, but Rude felt uncharacteristically tense as he awaited Reno's regular greeting and invitation to the bar after they finished clocking out.

It was another anniversary of the dropping of the plate above Sector 7 – a morbid holiday celebrated each year by Reno with a superfluous amount of alcohol and Rude by his side. Reno never explicitly talked about the event (besides flippant comments and jokes immediately afterward), but Rude, with his eye for nuance and subtleties, noticed a shift in his demeanor when this time of year rolled around. Reno's smiles didn’t quite reflect in his eyes as usual and his typical anxieties seemed to bubble closer to his surface. His thirst for alcohol also became particularly unquenchable.

“Hey, partner,” Reno spoke with an almost sardonic grin, “drinks?”

Rude soon found himself seated next to Reno at one of their favorite dodgy bars, gulping down shots of whiskey with the redhead – first one, then two, then three – as Reno lamented Tseng's increasingly anal-retentive personality (“we barely even have a job these days so why does it matter, yo?”) to piggybacking off that thought with a slight concern over job security. Workplace woes – the first bullet point on this special edition of Reno's Extended Monologues. Rude switched to beer as Reno downed a few more shots as a fast-pass to his destination of drunkenness.

The apprehension of suddenly realizing you don’t want to be on a rollercoaster ride as soon as you’re fastened and the wheels begin to move gripped Rude for a second before the reassuring embrace of his own buzz settled his thoughts. Though he wasn’t expected to actually converse with Reno during his unloading of every thought on his mind, simply acting as a sounding board was exhausting on its own.

Reno also steadied his imbibing with beer as he leaned back to continue his prattling.

“So I decided to treat myself the other day. This uh, this fancy boutique popped up recently – I thought to myself, hey, I could go for some new threads.”

An image of Reno's closet filled to the brim with the civilian clothes he never got a chance to wear flashed though Rude's mind.

“So, the saleslady, she's real charming, like, she has me feelin' like the belle of the ball, and next thing I know she has me tryin' on this bougie green sweater, cashmere and wool, feels like a dream. Anyway, I get it on, and I look like a fuckin' solstice special, and I ain’t feelin' it.”

Rude wasn’t sure if Reno didn’t register his disinterest or if he was simply ignoring it.

“She can tell I’m wafflin', and she gives me these eyes and starts spinnin' a yarn about how she gets paid commission, and how this could really help her, and I hate seeing pretty ladies upset, you know, so I buy the fuckin’ sweater. But as I’m leavin', I’m starting to feel like I, like I got hustled. ‘Cuz she came on real strong and it was pretty formulaic, you know. But then I think, if she managed to hustle _me_ , she deserves my damn gil, yo.”

Rude continued to drink as Reno bounced from one pointless anecdote to the next, the redhead's gesticulations becoming broader and more involved as his blood alcohol content continued to climb. Rude tried his hardest to relegate the blathering to a drone in the back of his mind, but when Reno's nasally drawl (which can already be irritating in its own right) began to loudly slur, stutter, and modulate unevenly, it became impossible for Rude to tune it out completely.

“I feel like pissin' away money,” Reno huffed as he turned to Rude with narrowed eyes. “An’ you know – you know what sounds like a great way ta do that?” Reno didn’t wait for a reply. “The uh, the damn chocobo races!” Reno nudged Rude as he spoke – another familiar benchmark in Reno's inebriated spiral. He sought touch with bumps, pats, nudges, _pressure_ – attempting to cement himself in the physical realm while reminding himself that others existed there too.

“Yeah, you know, with the races, if you win big, you can celebrate by drinkin', and if ya lose big, you can console yourself – also with drinkin'. Hmm.” Reno looked pensive for a moment as he attempted to regain his train of thought. “Yeah, you know, Rude, we can go see one of them plays you like too, while we’re there. And uh… we can catch a ride on the gondola.” Reno smirked as he cocked his head towards his partner. “An’ uh, maybe rent out a room in the Ghost Hotel.”

Reno's touches were lingering now – or maybe that was just Rude's warped perception of time from his own alcohol consumption. He hadn't intended to get quite so drunk, but there was now a distinct lag between his thoughts and his motor control, and Reno's voice began to sound more like distant waves.

“You – you know, I got my hair from my Nan.” Reno's tone was yearning and his expression somber as Rude began to tune back in. “Recessive genes and all, y’know, skipped my Ma, she was a brunette…” Reno gave a nearly imperceptible sniffle and quipped suddenly, “Wait, why the fuck am I talking about this?” He ruffled his bangs and stared blankly before changing the subject.

Rude managed to interpret this stage of Reno's drunkenness as well – smatterings of personal information that left the redhead unusually vulnerable, even if for a brief moment. Rude sipped his drink in acknowledgement as he waited for the inevitable crescendo.

Reno was chain-smoking now – his pink lips were never absent a cigarette except for a second when he accidentally ignited a filter, gave a chuckling “whoops,” ripped the filter off, and lit the remains in order to salvage the tobacco rather than discard it. Rude found himself smoking as well – he hoped the nicotine head rush would help stabilize his drunken dizziness (it did, yet only briefly).

“So, I seen in the papers,” Reno drawled before sucking his teeth. “They, uh, they’re bringin' back the space industry. Tryin' ta launch again within the next coupla years or so.” Reno stiffened as he attempted to sync his thoughts with his mouth. “An’ uh, don’t me wrong, I fuckin' respect an' admire space travel – it’s the final frontier, yo. But uh, I uh…” Reno softened slightly. “I don’t know man, don’t it seem like our priorities are outta whack, spendin’ billions of gil, tryin' ta go muckin’ around in outer space when there are countless folks suffering right here, right now on this godforsaken rock beneath us?”

Rude looked to Reno with uncertainty behind his dark lenses.

“And I know that must sound real fuckin' hypocritical coming from me. ‘Cuz I – ‘cuz I – oh fuck, Rude, oh _fuck_.”

The finale of Reno's soliloquies – tears welling slightly within his widened eyes, threatening to spill with one hard blink, but Reno doesn’t allow the dam to break. This was the one time of year Rude saw the proud and haughty Reno exhibit any semblance of weakness, and he detested it. Reno's vulnerability pained Rude on an almost spiritual level.

Reno gave a shuddering breath. “Hey, Rude…” he began quietly, the ghost of a tremble in his voice. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”

Rude turned towards Reno with a firm gaze.

“I think the fact that you’re asking that question must mean you’re not entirely bad.”

Reno smiled. He couldn’t bring himself to believe Rude's words, but he liked the way they sounded. There was a certain hopefulness and optimism that only Rude seemed to have for Reno.

“Thanks, partner.” A pause. “Hey, I think I’m done here. Wanna go home?”

Rude helped Reno to his feet with a strong arm around his waist as Reno slung his arm over Rude’s shoulder. The two stepped outside into the night, pushing aside inklings of guilt, weakness, and moral quandaries for at least another year.

**Author's Note:**

> These pieces were written last year and were intended to be concluded with "...and one time he did (believe Rude)" but life got in the way and the word doc was abandoned. I came across it recently and decided to post these as-is with the tentative hope that I may eventually be inspired to finish its conclusion. Cheers!


End file.
